Crystalline Knowledge of You
by Atheniandream
Summary: She never thought they'd meet again - Future fic -


Beware!! FRAGILE BALANCE Spoilers!! (Just Checking)

Title: Crystalline knowledge of you

Author: Athena 

Warnings, Content: Angst, Slight humour...hints of romance

Pairing: Sam and Jack....have I ever written anything else? hehe

Season: Future, like WAY in the future and ...............FRAGILE BALANCE.....

Archive: , Helio, and anywhere else, just ask.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Especially not a TV. Go Figure.

Has been BETAD - Thanks Susan - You're a Star!

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Notes: -PLEASE READ- Before I get a flood of 'that's not how Jack and Sam would react', we are dealing with an older Sam who's spent her life with Jack O'Neill and had a lot more experiences. She's had a bit....okay! A lot of Jack O'Neill rubbed off on her, so I'd like to think that she's changed a lot after season eight. And the Jack O'Neill clone, who has spent his life without everything that he knew, is also very different. He's spent a lot of time without the woman that he knew. Doesn't mean I don't want the feedback...heehee.

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Crystalline knowledge of you

---

And I knew,

In the crystalline knowledge of you,

Drove me through the mountain,

Through the crystal like a clear water fountain,

Drove me like a magnet...to the sea...

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I knew it....I knew it the moment I walked down the street today, that this day would come...

"Carter?"

My chest skipped the moment that I heard his voice.

So distinct, so individual, so common to my life- and so long since I'd heard those words.

Had it really been 30 years?

"Well, Colonel or General Samantha Carter, I presume?"

I didn't think to say 'Hi' first.

"No, just Colonel." Reaching for my pockets like a child, being watched by the beady eye of a Grandparent.

So....this was Jack O'Neill...47 year old Jack O'Neill.

I was a little taken back to say the least.

His hair is brown, the most obvious difference, even if a little grey was starting to show itself. Skin, smooth and unblemished, eyes bright but not anymore charming that his original. Mouth quirked up at one side and an almost identical leather jacket to the one slugging against my shoulders, causing my arms to touch self consciously at my sides.

"Jack...it's been a while."

I knew that one day this day would come. I knew that I'd have to stare it, him, 'the other', in the face.

I just wish that I hadn't been 65 when it happened.

65, childless and alone.

"So....how are you?"

"Good. You?"

"Yeah. I uh....shopping."

I heard the honesty in his voice, and it immediately made me smile.

"So...how's the other me?"

"Dead, Jack. He uh....he died."

"Oh...I uh, I'm sorry to hear that..."

"He was nearly 80, Jack. He had a great life." My insistent need to change the subject didn't subside. "You look...like the first day I met you." I couldn't help but laugh at that. The biggest portion of my life with my Jack O'Neill, as short as it had been, had him in grey hair and forgetfulness. But the man in front of me was full of life, full of vitality and... So painfully absent from my past. I missed that. I missed the flow, the ease of the rhythm that we'd built up. I missed the working, and the talking, and the flirting...even if it was more, for while at least. In a crude sense of regret, I suddenly wished that I'd slept with Colonel Jack O'Neill the day I'd found out that I loved him...how moral of me.

"You look good, too...Sam." I could see in his eyes...he struggled with that word.

And yet I'd heard it cried out me in a peak of magnetism and climax too many times for it to take effect like it once did.

"No Jack, I look 65." I said. You had to give him points for at least trying to compliment me.

The truth was that 30 years of looking after a man twice my age had put a few more lines in my face, shadows and crinkles under my eyes. His death had been worse, like my father's and my mother's, the lost meaning of my life and not just in the literal sense...but the emotional side, too. He held my heart, you know? .....

"You'll always be beautiful, Carter."

Stunning...heck, alerting my psyche, I saw something behind his eyes that I'd seen so long ago. A longing? A kept reverence of a feeling, an emotional part of him not seen since we'd left past feelings in that room.

"I've missed....." I wanted to say 'you'. "Him. I miss him."

"I miss you."

That wasn't what I expected to hear.

In every day, every second of the 30 years, I never expected to hear the carbon 'cloned' copy of the man I loved...love utter those words to me. Hell, even the real Jack had found trouble trying to communicate the words, and instead settled with a subtle silence, or a look, but always a touch. But for a second, disconnected immediately from time, in that second, I wanted to believe his eyes, dark and meaningful. I wanted to believe in some beautifully poetic justice that he'd thought about me... all this time. Through all of the difference of life and experience - more slung on the top of his old life than anything else - I wanted to know that even though he'd led and welcomed another life after that day... the one thing missing in his life...

"I wish Loki had made a little you...."

... Was me. And maybe it was. It's not the time to know now... is it?

Then he added. "And a Daniel and Teal'c, of course." With a smile I knew so well that I could paint it on canvas with a blunt pencil and my eyes closed...

"Carter?"

I couldn't say it back. It meant nothing. He probably wasn't even the Jack O'Neill that I remembered 30 years ago...

I looked at his eyes, just one... one last time. Felt the warmth and ever-lucid presence of a person that represented the man I loved.

"Well, it's nice...great to see you."

That was when I smiled and turned. I had to, for the sake of my own twisted being.

I'd made the decision.

"You wanna take a walk in the park?"

"I better go..."

"Sam." I shivered, trying not to feel the warmth of his hand on mine.

"We shouldn't. You're not the Jack I know."

"So? You can tell me all about your life."

-----

"And then he deteriorated and slowly, I watched him die. That was a year ago. He uh, he said that when he died, he didn't want to buried...instead, he wanted to be cremated and sprinkled in an Amsterdam Burlesque House...so, that's why he's still in my study."

"Wait? I'm in your Study?" The faint humour in his voice edged to concern. "Don't ya worry that, you're gonna knock him over?"

"Well, he said burlesque house or nothing, and I haven't gotten to going...yet."

"Sounds like me."

"Oh yea."

I didn't have the faintest idea or the comprehension of why I was old, sitting on a bench with a man who was a younger version of my past. I suppose he wasn't really my past, just a representation of a point in my life. Where I was naive and unknowing of the world. Where I thought I could conquer the world, right the wrongs, only to find that I had been seen as something so small in a revelation so huge that it passed the problem itself. The one remaining constant in my later life was him. And in the words of Jack O'Neill 'When they piss you off, they tend to grow on you a little bit more'.

Oh, he grew on me alright....every sarcastic, stubborn, passionate, moody, complacent, seductive, forgetful square-inch of himself.

But I'd lost my Jack... long ago, and there was no way in hell that it would be right to gain another one....

"So...any children?"

"No. At least, apart from Cass."

"Why not? I was expecting you to have a litter of little goobers running around..."

"We wanted to but I can't....and our jobs meant that we couldn't adopt so..."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Thanks. He always said....he wanted to have an army."

"Yeah..."

Those words seemed to hash up the past all too quickly, and I felt the direction of conversation slipping... I had to change to a less painful subject. Other wise I may as well have left, then and there.

"So, you have a girlfriend or a wife?"

"No. I uh..."

"What? Don't tell me you haven't been with a few, Jack. I know you, remember..."

"I. Fell in love with you when I was 50, Carter. That tends to stay with you, you know."

Jack would never have admitted that. Not without a gun propped up against his head. I guess 30 years rehashing and re-experiencing life had changed Jack O'Neill.

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, I'm still an old romantic, wasn't your fault. I just never expected to see you...30 years on....still looking like 'you'. I thought you would'a had....a stair-lift installed or whatever."

"I can still walk, you know! Albeit barely but I get around fine. It's looking after Jack...you that took the wind outta my sails....if you ever do get married again, don't forget to apologize to your wife in advance....you'll get even more stubborn as you get older. Believe me."

"Well all 'great trades' aside, this....is a little weird, I gotta tell ya. I'm an 80 year old 'cloned' guy of my original self, trapped in a 47 year old version of myself, having had lived the past 30 years of my life twice, and differently. And I'm sitting next to the woman that I fell for when I was nearing 50...."

"Yes, that's kinda funny. Not funny 'Haha', but alien-cloning kinda funny."

"And you know what's actually normal about the whole shabockle?"

"What?"

He paused a moment, I could see the options of his answer turning in his head.

"You."

"How so?"

"You haven't changed a day, Carter. All that's changed is that technically you're twenty years older than me now. We've changed places."

"No. Technically, you're still twenty years older...but you get progressively younger as you move from the inside out."

"Twisted or what?"

"Ooh yeah."

Every moment that I sat there, revelling in our morbid situation and the classic turn of events... It felt like I....

No. I know I wanted to kiss him.

Know what it felt like to kiss the man I loved one more time, without being awoken by his death only to pinch myself all over for not kissing him more and touching him, and talking. And to just feel again. Would it feel the same? Would he react as my Jack did? But then....heck, what the hell was I thinking? I'm old. I'm the not the young, exciting Carter he knew. And it would be considered sick....besides the fact that park-onlookers would find it strange, even on my own moral ground it was just wrong. Even when taking into consideration all of the strange circumstances and the history. Whether the soul inside him was 80 or not....there were just so many mixed wrongs in the whole situation.

But...

I could only do it once.....and I had already.

So, this time, I would take the easy option.

I briefly placed a kiss on his cheek. Simple. Understated. Respectful for possible onlookers.

I didn't expect for him to turn his head. I wouldn't have kissed him otherwise.

Slow, tenderly slow, I was frightened at first. We may have been completely alone, sitting in a park in the middle of winter but I still felt like we were being watched. I felt the hum in his throat as his thumb smoothed through my hair - thinner, whiter and longer than he remembered - and landed on the nape of my neck. I felt the heat in my face flush and my mind flew back through all that revolved in our twisted relationship...

Sir...no!-I care about her, a lot more-You're in withdrawal-so am I!-go now, if I knew-name's Pete-speeding again-oh, I adore you already-Carter-when I saw you-glad you're okay-...Jack-What-Fishing Carter-Is this how it's gonna be!-I'm a safe bet-I want you-I can't marry you-not like this-I'm....seeing someone-adorable little tank top-I'll eat this head dress-can you walk-we need her-I need you-I want you-marry me Sam-I can't have children-I don't care-I can't take this-He's okay, he's stable-he's not going to die-I miss him-It's good to see you sir-You're not gonna leave me Jack-you promised-I will always love you-he's gone....

The kiss was brief. My life- it seemed- had been even quicker.

"I always loved you, you know that?" I wished it had been as easy to say all those years ago, but I'd obviously had practice. But I needed him to know...something for him to remember.

"Right back at'cha."

And I laughed immediately. Pure Jack O'Neill.

"We can't see each other. It would-"

"I know. Be too hard."

If felt the need to smooth my thumb over his hand as it left my body...one more time I smiled.

But I couldn't look into his eyes. I would have stayed if I did.

"Take care, Jack."

"Yeah. You too."

'I turned around, and the water, was closing around me....' 'Crystal' By Stevie Nicks

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I found it depressing and I hope you do to!!

Hope You enjoyed it! :)

Athena


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